Hamilton Nolan

Washington, DC is known to be America's "capital" city—of hipness. Much of that hip, young vibe is driven by "millennial"-generation "hipsters," spreading their hipness around the city like a blanket of comforting disease. But has DC gotten too hip for the good of its own hipness?

When you think of "hip," there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that, just after you…
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YES, POSSIBLY, is the resounding answer today from the Washington Post's award winning Trends in Hipness Desk. It appears that DC—which has been heated up by the "triple hipness threat" of Barack Obama, gentrification, and Ben's Chili Bowl 'n Souvenir Apparel Outlet—is now a giant hipness-engine that is sucking in young hipness on one end, and spitting out used-up hipness on the other end. The WaPo reports:

The most recent city data show that while the median age of those moving into the District is about 26, the median age of those migrating out is 29. Of the 59,000 people who left the District in 2012, about 44 percent ranged from 20 to 34 years old. Those leaving were likely to be college-educated and have an income above $50,000.

Meanwhile, in a recent survey from Virginia Tech of nearly 500 college-educated D.C. residents younger than 34, about 70 percent reported some desire to stay in the city in the next five years.

On top of all this, the city still had a net gain of 8,500 presumably hip millennials in 2012. It's the classic Hip City dynamic: poor, young hip kids come in, live in shitty apartments and shitty conditions, raising the city's hipness quotient; when they get old enough to want a decent apartment and maybe have a kid, they of course can't afford one, so the city dismisses them, making way for more young, hip aspirationals.